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Accessibility statement
Qualification dates
StartEnd
03 Oct 2026Jun 2027
This module examines how psychology helps us understand and respond to real-world issues such as crime, climate change and the digital world. You’ll explore psychological theories that address these challenges, with particular attention to social processes and forensic contexts. Your perspectives will be broadened by introducing cognitive, social, cultural and applied approaches, encouraging you to question conventional explanations. Alongside developing knowledge of core psychological areas and research principles, including ethics, you’ll build confidence in evaluating evidence and communicating with different audiences. Interactive online activities also support your development of academic, digital and employability skills for higher-level study and future careers.
The module is organised into five blocks, each centred on a real-world theme. These themes allow you to make connections across theories, methods and applications, and to understand psychology as a dynamic and contested field.
Block 1: Lying and believing
You’ll examine why people lie, how deception is detected, and how cognitive processes such as perception and attention shape judgement and decision-making. You’ll also explore conspiracy theories, the social dynamics that sustain them and their links to harm and crime. The block concludes by drawing these threads together, including a focus on deception and bias in artificial intelligence.
Block 2: Extreme events and social conflict
This block explores how people respond to disasters, how riots and protests emerge and unfold, and how gender and violence intersect with social, cultural and legal systems. You’ll consider group processes, social identity, mental health, community responses and policing approaches, while evaluating competing explanations for collective behaviour.
Block 3: Doing harm and making good
You’ll study theories of offending, including cognitive, developmental, social, neurological and clinical perspectives. Topics include adverse childhood experiences, personality traits, offending, psychopathy and impulsivity. You’ll also explore how behavioural patterns are formed and can change, in contexts such as crime, health, and climate change, and learn how individual, social and cultural factors influence real-world choices.
Block 4: Resilience and wellbeing
This block examines how individuals and societies cope with personal and environmental change; the neurobiological and social bases of happiness; and neurodiversity. You’ll consider how cognitive, developmental and social factors shape neurodivergent experiences, along with forensic issues such as interviewing vulnerable people.
Block 5: Connecting and belonging
This block examines how communication creates meaning and is used to influence and persuade; the psychology of language and how it contributes to identity and belonging; and how identity develops and is shaped by social, cultural, and technological contexts.
This is an OU level 2 module, and you need to have the study skills for both higher education and distance learning, obtained either through OU level 1 study or by doing equivalent work at another university. You are not expected to have any special knowledge of psychology.
If you have any doubt about the suitability of the module, please speak to an adviser.
You’ll get help and support from an assigned tutor throughout your module.
They’ll help by:
Online tutorials run throughout the module. While they’re not compulsory, we strongly encourage you to participate. Where possible, we’ll make recordings available.
Course work includes:
You'll be provided with one textbook and have access to the module website, which includes:
The OU strives to make all aspects of study accessible to everyone, and this Accessibility Statement outlines what studying D250 involves. You should use this information to inform your study preparations and any discussions with us about how we can meet your needs.
To find out more about what kind of support and adjustments might be available, contact us or visit our Disability support website.
Applying psychology starts once a year – in October.
This page describes the module that will start in October 2026.
We expect it to start for the last time in October 2035.
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